


Once Defined a World

by broodyelf



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cooking, Family Bonding, Gen, Implied Relationships, Light Angst, M/M, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broodyelf/pseuds/broodyelf
Summary: They drag him back to Overwatch on a Tuesday, but Gabriel Reyes doesn’t really come back then. It takes time, years, and forgiveness, and a plate of flammable mashed potatoes, for him to come back to the team, to Jack, to the family.Or, how old traditions and Junkrat's shitty cooking bring Gabriel Reyes home.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [XxXx_what_xXxX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxXx_what_xXxX/gifts).



> For my lovely friend Julia, who was gracious enough to let me do what I want with the prompt she gave me. Originally this was going to be a Cutthroat Kitchen AU but I kept thinking of Reyes and him being back and this happened. Regardless, hope you enjoy. :)

They drag him back to Overwatch on a Tuesday.

He does not remember all of it, only the way the light reflects off of 76’s—Jack’s— visor, the way Ana shakes her head, the way that Jesse grits his teeth, the way that the archer examines him with a raised brow. He wonders, idly, what the man must think of him: the wraith that had so often shot at him on the battlefield, the half dead legend of what Overwatch used to be. He had almost taken the archer out, once, and he remembers the blood and the look that had been in Jesse’s eyes, the pure hatred he had seen there. 

He wonders what they all must think of him, and then he decides that he does not care.

And then he passes out.

_

Mercy—Angela—tells him that he is safe, but he’s handcuffed to the bed, so that’s yet to be seen. He could easily phase out of them, could make a run for it, but he is so _tired._ He watches her while she works. He remembers how she had attempted to fix him, all those years ago, how she had brought him back. There had only been so much she could do. He used to blame her, used to blame her for the way that he had become only smoke and mirrors, but more often he wishes that he were dead.

Winston stops in often and talks to Mercy in hushed whispers that he thinks Gabriel won’t hear. He does. They wonder if he is a risk. They wonder what to do with him. They wonder if he knows where Widowmaker is. They wonder just how much he has been damaged by Talon, by brainwashing, by this and that, how much remains of Gabriel Reyes.

He wants to tell them that he is far past whatever little heroic scheme for retribution and redemption they have going on, that he had always known what he was doing, that there is nothing left but dust, but he closes his eyes instead and tries to sleep.

He stays awake.

 _

Jack comes in at night, lets in light from the hallway that shines against his eyelids. Blind or not, Jack knows when he’s sleeping and when he’s faking, but he doesn’t say anything. He was always courteous like that, the asshole.

He says nothing, just sits there, and Gabriel wants to turn around and face him, wants to curse at him at Spanish, wants to scream and ask why they’re doing this, but he stays silent. The thrum of the air conditioning and generators whirl, and he falls asleep with a ghost keeping watch from the doorway.

_ 

They give him a room of his own. He knows he has Jack to thank for this, the privilege of a bed instead of a holding cell. Still, they watch him carefully, especially the newer recruits, the ones who know him only as the bastard who almost killed them. There are cameras, too, and he knows for a fact that there are patrols outside his room, that someone is always watching, that they are all on high alert.

He wants to leave, he does, but he stays, at least for the moment. He’s too injured anyway, believe it or not; the corpse he calls a body still bleeds. So he stays in his room and rarely ventures out. He does not eat with them, does not train with them, and they all keep their distance. He examines them all, when he thinks they are not looking or listening; watches and examines the scars and wrinkles that the years have added to Jesse’s face; he takes note of the declining amount of distance between the two Japanese brothers, the cyborg and the archer; he listens to, more than sees, the DJ and the girl with the mech yell at video games.

He wants to look away, but he can’t. He watches them and wonders where and how he fits into all of this. How many times has he tried to hurt them, to kill them? How many times has he come close?

The archer seems to be the only one who takes note of his hushed presence. He does not know his story—never gleamed those details in all of his observations—but he does notice how sometimes the act of being close to his brother seems to fracture something in him. He wonders if the archer knows the shame that burns in Gabe’s chest, if he has experienced it himself.

He tells himself he does not care, but a voice in the back of his mind, which sounds suspiciously like Morrison, tells him that he does.

 _

He’s getting water when he stumbles across them. He had believed that there would be no one around, as it was a quiet day, but when he walks into the kitchen, he pauses.

The entire team is crammed into the kitchen. There are four separate chairs that are distinct from the rest, and in them sits Jack, Jesse, Ana, and Lena. The rest of the group, with a few exceptions, chatter, but a hush fills the room when they spot him in the doorway.

He blinks, and they all stare at him. Lena speaks up first.

“Ah, we’re having a competition, eh? Cooking competition, that is. It’s a tradition, you see.”

He sees. He knows, because he’s one of the ones who started it. The recruits always liked competition, liked watching old vids of cooking competitions like Cutthroat Kitchen, and they all missed home, so Jesse had come to him one day with the idea of starting a sort of monthly tradition where they would make dishes from home and people would judge them and his chest fucking hurts, he remembers everything, remembers laughing and smiling and being happy, before it all went to shit, before he became—

 "You may join us, if you want.” It is, surprisingly, the archer who says this. He watches Jesse shoot him a look, and they seem to have a silent conversation before Jesse huffs and Lena nods, brightening.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun!”

Gabriel hesitates. The others are staring at him like he might murder them, and he can’t blame them for hesitating. He has tried to. This is something familial, something familiar, something he should not be part of. He is…not worthy of something like this, hasn’t been in a long time.

“Sit your ass down, Reyes, we don’t have all day.” Ana says it. She does not smile, but there’s something in her eyes.

So he sits. The others give him space, some scooting their chairs away. He pretends not to notice. He watches. Eventually a few of them come out with food, putting it before the judges. Junkrat’s dish is, alarmingly, on fire, and instead of saying anything, Ana only sighs and sprays the dish with a fire extinguisher. It is so absurd, but it feels normal, for a split second. The others make occasional comments, and the judges taste each plate—even the one now covered in frost—and Gabe starts to wonder again why he’s here when it happens.

Jack is in the middle of something that Zarya has made, when he scrunches his nose and makes _this face_ , and it is the same face that Gabe has seen a hundred times when going through training, the same face that made his days a little bit joyful after a shitty mission, and he can’t help it, because this whole situation is so fucking odd, and Junkrat’s set something on fire _again_ and he’s alive and sitting in a room full of people part of him misses more than anything.

He laughs. He laughs a genuine, obnoxious, ugly laugh, and curls into himself. He can feel the others looking at him—his voice is raspier than it used to be, and he no doubt sounds creepy as hell, but when he glances up he sees that Jack has caught on and has started laughing himself. And even Jesse is eventually smiling, the slightest upturn at the corners of his mouth, and soon enough they’re all laughing and he wants to live in that moment, a desire he has not had in a long while.

_

They drag him back to Overwatch on a Tuesday, but Gabriel Reyes doesn’t really come back then. It takes time, years, and forgiveness, and a plate of flammable mashed potatoes, for him to come back to the team, to Jack, to the _family_.

But it happens.

It happens.

**Author's Note:**

> "Oh the past is too much with me in the kitchen, where I open the vintage metal recipe box, robin’s egg blue in its interior, to uncover the card for Waffles, writ in my father’s hand reaching out from the grave to guide me from the beginning, 'sift and mix dry ingredients' with his note that this makes '3 waffles in our large pan' and around that our an unbearable round stain—of egg yolk or melted butter?— that once defined a world." - Jeanne Marie Beaumont
> 
> Follow me at: http://dual-wielding-dalish.tumblr.com/


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